Free Straight Up and Dirty: A Memoir by Stephanie Klein

adult male of various deer, especially the red deer.
2. An animal, especially a pig, castrated after reaching sexual maturity.
3. A person who attends a social gathering unaccompanied by a partner, especially a man who is unaccompanied by a woman.
4. A social gathering for men only.

adj.
1. Of or for men only: a stag party.
2. Pornographic: stag films.

    How can a word meaning “unaccompanied by a partner” also mean “castrated pig” and “pornographic?” No wonder people are frightened into borrowing and, ultimately, “ stag ing” love. I spent too much time there, caring what other people thought, what Gabe’s family thought. I wasn’t ready, just yet, to share pew space with a date, despite what anyone would hiccup about time going by so fast. Forget having a date for the wedding. I wasn’t sure I should even be dating anyone. ’Cause “anyone,” I feared, would turn out like Gabe. The kind of love who wasn’t patient or kind, who was easily angered, and kept a record of my wrongs. Stag, by any definition, was better than that.

three
C EREAL MONOGAMY

    “I REFUSE TO GO OUT,” I DECLARED WITHOUT APOLOGY to Max over the phone the following week.

    “What the hell’s your problem? I said dinner, not diva.”

    “I know. I’m sorry. I’m just so sick of this dating. I’m beginning to forget which stories I’ve told to whom.”

    “Then stop. You act like one night at home means you’re wasting time.” That was exactly right. If I found someone who loved me before Gabe found someone, it would mean I won. Yeah, won the psycho award. Max was right, and he was there, usually willing to do whatever I suggested.

    When I was having the “I’ll never meet anyone” s, I twirled my spice rack and Eeny Meeny Miny Maxed. My neighbor Max was my pantry, as comforting as Darjeeling, yet as strong as espresso. He was a new neighbor now that I’d moved west, but he was also an old friend who predated my marriage to Gabe. It wasn’t as though I didn’t get my share of deliciously fresh men. I did, but too often, they cropped up in colonies and seceded in stampedes. Max was my when-in-doubt, always there, Macaroni & Cheese in the middle of the night. So why aren’t we married already? It’s simple.
     
    Some people are close talkers—you’re worried they might touch your face with their tongue when using words with “L”s. Then you’ve got the loud talkers who speak as if they’re at a Megadeth concert, even in waiting rooms. Max is neither. He’s a small talker. He doesn’t do weather, politics, or movie prattle. He does infantimbre —a form of baby talk so cloying it deserves italics. Uses words like seeping in lieu of sleeping . I couldn’t date this, never mind vows.

    “Oh, and before I forget, when I die, I want to be cremated and encapsulated in a firecracker,” he added over the phone.

    “What?”

    “Yeah, in a firecracker that you’ll explode over the ocean. Poof.” Not “bang” or “boom” but “poof.” This is why he’s Gay Max, despite the fact that he’s heterosexual, and we once fucked until we broke the bed. No one could quite understand why we weren’t together, including us, when we were lonesome.
     
    I wasn’t quite ready to invite him to an I’m-not-dating-him-so-now-you-can party, where people bring companionable members of the opposite sex to meet other former ill-suited lovers. I knew I didn’t want him, but I didn’t want anyone else to have him either. My pantry of past men was teeming with faded dill weed, thyme, and, unfortunately, onion powder (he was an unsightly mistake). But Gay Max was the saffron of the bunch, the most auspicious member of my past.

    It’s hard to leave a history and watch other people date yours. Some people are aces at it—it seems more of their best friends are exes than not. When I first met a man who told me his best friend was an ex of his, I held my breath a little. The “count to ten” carried me past irrational, and